Big Little Lies(65)

“He was a prick,” said Madeline helplessly. “He was just a stupid prick.” It occurred to her that the more Jane expounded on ugliness, the more beautiful she looked, with her hair coming loose, her cheeks flushed and eyes shining. “You’re beautiful,” she began.
“No!” said Jane angrily. “I’m not! And that’s OK that I’m not. We’re not all beautiful, just like we’re not all musical, and that’s fine. And don’t give me that inner beauty shining through crap either.”
Madeline, who had been about to give her that inner beauty shining through crap, closed her mouth.
“I didn’t mean to lose so much weight,” said Jane. “It makes me angry that I lost weight, as if I were doing it for him, but I got all weird about food after that. Every time I went to eat it was like I could see myself eating. I could see myself the way he’d seen me: slovenly fat girl eating. And my throat would just . . .” She tapped a hand to her throat and swallowed. “Anyway! So it was quite effective! Like a gastric bypass. I should market it. The Saxon Banks Diet. One quick, only slightly painful session in a hotel room and there you go: lifelong eating disorder. Cost-effective!”
“Oh, Jane,” said Madeline.
She thought of Jane’s mother and her comment on the beach about “no one wants to see this in a bikini.” It seemed to her that Jane’s mother had probably helped lay the groundwork for Jane’s mixed-up feelings about food. The media had done its bit, and women in general, with their willingness to feel bad about themselves, and then Saxon Banks had finished the job.
“Anyway,” said Jane. “Sorry for that little tirade.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Also, I don’t have bad breath,” said Jane. “I’ve checked with my dentist. Many times. But we’d been out for pizza beforehand. I had garlic breath.”
So that was the reason for the gum obsession.
“Your breath smells like daisies,” said Madeline. “I have an acute sense of smell.”
“I think it was the shock of it more than anything,” said Jane. “The way he changed. He seemed so nice, and I’d always thought I was a pretty good judge of character. After that, I felt like I couldn’t really trust my own instincts.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Madeline. Could she have picked him? Would she have fallen for his Mary Poppins song?
“I don’t regret it,” said Jane. “Because I got Ziggy. My miracle baby. It was like I woke up when he was born. It was like he had nothing to do with that night. This beautiful tiny baby. It’s only as he’s started to turn into a little person with his own personality that it even occurred to me, that he might, that he might have, you know, inherited something from his . . . his father.”
For the first time, her voice broke.
“Whenever Ziggy behaves in a way that seems out of character, I worry. Like on orientation day, when Amabella said he choked her. Of all the things to happen. Choking. I couldn’t believe it. And sometimes I feel like I can see something in his eyes that reminds me of, of him, and I think, ‘What if my beautiful Ziggy has a secret cruel streak? What if my son does that to a girl one day?’”
“Ziggy does not have a cruel streak,” said Madeline. Her desperate need to comfort Jane cemented her belief in Ziggy’s goodness. “He’s a lovely, sweet boy. I’m sure your mother is right, he’s your grandfather reincarnated.”
Jane laughed. She picked up her mobile phone and looked at the time on the screen. “It’s so late! You should go home to your family. I’ve kept you here this long, blathering on about myself.”
“You weren’t blathering.”
Jane stood up. She stretched her arms high above her head so that her T-shirt rose and Madeline could see her skinny, white, vulnerable stomach. “Thank you so much for helping me get this damned project done.”
“My pleasure.” Madeline stood as well. She looked at where Ziggy had written “Ziggy’s dad.” “Will you ever tell him his name?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know,” said Jane. “Maybe when he’s twenty-one, when he’s old enough for me to tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“He might be dead,” said Madeline hopefully. “Karma might have gotten him in the end. Have you ever Googled him?”
“No,” said Jane. There was a complicated expression on her face. Madeline couldn’t tell if it meant that she was lying or that even the thought of Googling him was too painful.
“I’ll Google the awful creep,” said Madeline. “What was his name again? Saxon Banks, right? I’ll find him and then I’ll put out a hit on him. There must be some kind of online murder-a-bastard service these days.”